Rumination
by SailorStrut
Summary: In which Kolyat contemplates his father, and that strange woman he calls 'siha'.


Written because we never got a chance to see from Kolyat's point of view.

* * *

_I'm Commander Shepard and this is my favorite store on the Citadel._

How many shops had that slogan now? Three, four? Shepard was crafty; Kolyat had to give her that. Running around to each of those shops, promising the unsuspecting shopkeep a unique, once-in-a-lifetime endorsement? He couldn't blame them for jumping at it. And in retrospect, he didn't blame them for their sulky, bemused reactions when they learned they had all been played by a dead Spectre. A dead, human Spectre.

The human part was important for the young drell, who was currently taking his break by walking through Zakera Ward, ignoring the advertisement for Elcor Hamlet (_who in their right minds would put themselves through that?_) and doing some much needed thinking. Bailey had kept him busy; not unexpected, as the Citadel wasn't as squeaky clean as some believed, but not unwanted. After his encounter with his father—

_Dark eyes stare back into mine, pleading forgiveness. Hands at his sides, limp in defeat. His voice is slow, cautious, yet strong—he is in control. I lose, falling helplessly into his arms like a broken child._

-thinking was the last thing on his mind. He wanted to bury himself in work, take that second chance he was offered and never look back.

But then, not looking back didn't mean he had to give up his father. Not again. He kept sending messages, kept trying, and Kolyat found himself responding. It hadn't been out of love for his father, however, or a sudden desire to put everything right between them. Thane Krios was a highly intelligent man, and a perceptive one—he had known exactly what to say to get his son to cry, to surrender. Kolyat knew that Thane wasn't expecting him to write back, so the young drell did so. He kept things light, simple. Talked about life on the Citadel, of the strange krogan insisting there were fish on the Presidium and the Tupari machine that threatened its customers. His father would do the same, mentioning life around the _Normandy_, the ship he was stationed on. However, he would always slip in something, a line dangling for Kolyat to catch.

"_I was listening to my old records yesterday, and I heard the one you loved to dance crazy to…"_

It was never anything sappy, or sugary. No, his father was an assassin; he was cleverer than that. Kolyat knew, yet he responded anyway. It would take time to rebuild the broken bond, but it suddenly seemed possible.

And they were well on their way to doing so, when a few weeks later his father started his next letter with _I have met another siha._

At first Kolyat thought it was a joke. Thane Krios was subtle, sneaky; there was no way he would stick something that earth-shattering in the first sentence. The continuation of the letter, however, detailing how he knew that Kolyat would be angry, that he had every right to be and he saw how it could be perceived as replacing his mother, confirmed it.

After abandoning his mother, leaving her to die, leaving _him_, he pulled this?

With a soft sigh as he called for a shuttle, he decided not to think back to the last few days. They had been spent in blind rage at his father, at the apparent betrayal. In the end, fury had not granted him peace. Besides, after the anger had subsided a little, curiosity and confusion had surfaced. His father's siha was Commander Shepard, the human who had helped to thwart his first 'hit'. _Human_. Kolyat had nothing against them, but they were so different, alien. The physical differences were bad enough, from the hair to the breasts, but the emotional part was worse. Humans didn't have the benefit of a perfect memory, the sense of a disconnect. They were emotional, headstrong, and above all, they didn't understand their own limitations. Tell a drell to do an impossible task, and he would calmly explain that it just simply wasn't do-able. Tell a human, and they would rush blindly into it, believing their determination would be enough.

But wasn't it? Commander Shepard had apparently followed Saren to Ilos, and defeated those geth at the Citadel, and that was said to be impossible. And yet she had managed. According to Thane's message, the mission he was on had a high probability of no return, but Shepard was determined to bring every one of her people home. If Kolyat was wrong about humans and their determination being useless, he could be wrong about other things.

Judgment was finally rendered a few days later. It had been a fairly quiet day, traffic slowing and shops closing when Kolyat saw her. It was the way she carried herself that tipped him off, with the insanely straight back and slight jog. She had approached the krogan who had been there for a few days, constantly talking about fish. While Kolyat was too far out of range to hear much, he did see her taking out a fish and handing it over to the krogan, who had the largest smile Kolyat had ever seen on his face.

There were no fish on the Presidium. He had asked Bailey, and received a snort and a laugh for the answer. Not to mention the fact that they sold that kind of fish in the souvenir shop he had visited a couple of days ago. So what on Kahje was she playing at?

"That was cruel, Shep," A hooded woman walking beside the Commander remarked, her voice betraying amusement and confusion. "Why?"

"Did you see the look on his face?" Shepard replied, shrugging softly as she kept moving to stick with the turian in her group. "What good would telling him the truth do, other than depressing the hell out of him? There's enough disappointments out there already. Enjoy the little things, like Mr. Scoped and Dropped over there." After hearing the turian laugh, Kolyat quietly removed himself from the area, still mulling things over. She was kind enough to do something for a total stranger, clever enough to do it in such a way that benefited both parties, and ballsy enough to do it to a krogan.

Plus, as he had already figured out, she threw a pretty nasty punch.

One small encounter where he wasn't even involved wasn't enough to change his mind about his father's _siha._ But, he reasoned, it wouldn't kill him to give her a chance.


End file.
